Culture Telling Numbers: Analysing India & QS World University Ratings

In all, nine Indian universities are listed in the top 500 of QS rankings, which is cause for small, cautious applause, and call for massive policy mobilisation towards securing a rank in the top 100 world rankings, as well as securing representation in t

In the prestigious QS World University Rankings, for the second time, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has maintained its lead among Indian universities, improving this year from 162nd position to 152. IIT Delhi has bagged second spot sailing past the IISc (Indian Institute of Science), which was the second best Indian University last year.

In all, nine Indian universities are listed in the top 500 of QS rankings, which is cause for small, cautious applause, and call for massive policy mobilisation towards securing a rank in the top 100 world rankings, as well as securing representation in the top 20 QS Asia University Rankings, which is currently dominated by Singapore, China, Japan, Hongkong, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia, with IIT (Bombay) trailing at 33, IIT (Delhi) at 40 and IIT (Madras) at 48.

The Quacquarelli Symonds or QS World University Rankings that emerged from the UK, has, since 2004 (with Times Higher Education), and since 2009 (independently), been publishing the annual university Topof-the-Pops chart, and is recognised as the most prestigious university evaluation ranking in the world.

It is not without its critics who believe that it is driven by universities chasing prestige and profitability, and that its methodology is flawed with subjective surveys (academic peer review carries 40% weightage based on an internal global academic survey), with an institution’s previous rankings heavily influencing its new ranking, ensuring that top universities stay high up the list, making it difficult for new universities to dethrone their supremacy.

Some critics also claim that universities need to be oriented to the English language and that’s why Europe is so underrepresented in the top rankings, despite maintaining long-standing, robust higher education institutions.

However, the QS Rankings remain an important benchmark, especially for recently developed and developing economies, as top-ranked universities increasingly symbolise status, attract intelligent young minds from around the world, or cause a brain-drain with thousands of the most intelligent and rich students seeking foreign shores due to insufficient opportunities in their own country.

Higher education is also being understood as a lucrative business stream that is making governments sit up and take notice. According to Orbis Research, USA, the global higher education market has grown from 1330 million $ to 2300 million $ this year, and will further grow to 5680 million $ by 2022 as a result of internationalization of the education sector.The QS rankings remain the most trusted and utilised criteria for potential students, their parents and education counsellors to take into consideration while choosing universities and courses anywhere in the world.

So, it is salient that Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal tweeted his congratulations for the QS Rankings to the top institutes, and said the government is determined to take other institutions of the country on top, on the strength of their educational excellence.

In keeping with this, the National Education Policy (NEP) draft has dedicated 120 pages exclusively to discuss the government’s vision and goals for higher education improvement in the country. The NEP draft extensively extols the importance of streamlining and maintaining autonomy of higher education institutions in the country and improving world rankings; yet, it is walking this talk that has been most difficult for successive Indian governments so far.

The NEP clearly understands the need for greater GER (Gross Enrolment Ratio) within the country, and commits to increase it from the present 25% to 50% by 2035. The main thrust of the policy also asserts the need to end “the fragmentation of higher education by moving into large multi-disciplinary universities and colleges, each of which will aim to have upwards of 5,000 or more students.”

There is a clear understanding that Liberal Arts and Humanities require a fillip in the country as this area is lagging behind. The need to “bring back” India’s ancient traditions of teacher autonomy and

greatness, like it once used to be in Takshashila and Nalanda universities from Buddhist times, is also reiterated.

However, political responses to critical thinking at Liberal Arts colleges will need to be recalibrated and carefully strategised for optimal functioning. Vicious fake news that hounded Professor Amartya Sen’s term-end as Vice-Chancellor in 2016 at Nalanda University because he was critical of some government policies; regular flash-points between political leaders against students and staff at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru, Ashoka, Delhi and Benaras Hindu Universities, etc. do not indicate convincing autonomous functioning.

It is important to note that overall, Indian universities suffered an average decline of 12 ranks in the 2019 QS Rankings due to Faculty/Student Ratio and International Student Ratio. So, the message that Indian universities are safe havens for provocative ideas, fearless discussion and debates will need to be carefully nurtured.

‘’Yes, I think it is extremely important for governments to take into account the QS Best Student Cities ranking as well, which is becoming an influential benchmark consideration by international students they want to be safe and comfortable wherever they move,’’ says Amit Dasgupta, India Country Director, University of New South Wales( UN SW ), Sydney, Australia.

The QS Best Student Cities ranking takes into account: student population, number and ratio of international students; tolerance & inclusion; safety, pollution & corruption scores, among others.

From the Asia-Pacific region this metric featured: Tokyo (2), Sydney (9), Seoul (10), Hongkong (12), Singapore (15), Kyoto (19) and Taipei (20) with Beijing and Shanghai at 26 and 29 positions respectively, with the only Indian city scraping through to the top 100 was Mumbai, at 99.